The youth should be allowed to tell themselves "I want to be a ____."
On ambition and its role on political dynasties and youth in politics in the Philippines.
Come mothers and fathers throughout the land
And don't criticize what you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command
Your old road is rapidly aging
Please get out of the new one if you can't lend your hand
'Cause the times, they are a-changin'
- Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A Changin (1964)
I recently watched Julia Fox’s writer’s Q&A for her book “Down the Drain” in Oxford Union back in October 2023, and one answer really stood out to me. When asked, “If you could leave our members with something to think about this week, what would it be?”, she answered, “I guess just think about, or meditate rather, or manifest your wildest dreams and think about what's the craziest thing that you could see happening. You know whether it's going to go you know be a lawyer for the United Nations and help underprivileged people around the world or be the next prime minister or whatever. I mean you guys are all clearly very intelligent people to be here so I feel like the world is yours.” And that got me thinking about the recent US Presidential debate with two geriatrics decomposing right in front of the world debating on who should be the next president of the most powerful country. Make no mistake, it is not an isolated case. Governments around the world have this issue of politicians overstaying and not getting the hint that they’re not getting the job done. Joe Biden, for example, looks like he’s one step away from dementia. And the worst is when they’re stuck with the old ways and some actively participate in efforts to worsen the current state of society. Sure, why not remove universal child health care because you can’t see the importance of it being a 60-year-old man. What’s the worst that could happen right?
And this is where the youth must come in. Holding on to their seats doesn’t make whatever promises they churn out come true. There will come a time when people of our generation have to take up these seats. Is it ageist? Maybe. Is it wrong? No! This transition isn’t clear, it just happens. There is no shortage of smart, courageous, and just young people in this world, but it is within our interest as youth to make sure they’re taking up these seats. We can only tell ourselves I want to be a ___ when we know that our right to equal opportunity and economic welfare exists. A while ago, a picture of what seems to be a school paper popped up in my Facebook timeline of Chiz Escudero openly praising Marcos Sr. and branding him and his family to be Marcos loyalists. Now Chiz Escudero isn’t exactly young, he is 54 years old and he seemed young when that paper came out (it had a picture of him during his time at UP Diliman as a Political Science Major). Chiz Escudero is a fourth-generation politician, a product of a political dynasty. But the point is that I would be horrified if my classmate were to be a Marcos loyalist, being a political science major studying their atrocities and human rights violations, knowing there is a high probability of them becoming a politician of high ranking in the future. Political dynasties practically run our government. Just as there is no shortage of just and courageous youth, there is no shortage of youth who are currently shaped by their reality to be corrupt and oppressive. Hot take, but for me conniving and cocky people have a natural affinity and drive to be in politics. Of course, the natural tendency for these young leaders who are offspring of political dynasties is to mimic the governance of their parents seeing as they’re literally surrounded and guided by them. I had never heard of Camille Villar and her accomplishments until her tarpaulins were plastered on my daily commute route. But, with certainty, she’s going to win in the next elections in whatever position she’s running for because she’s a Villar. You don’t even need to know her name to spot the awful similarity between hers and her mother’s face but somehow she decided to plaster her face as far as Cebu while she’s still serving as Las Pinas representative. (Camille Villar is 39 years old but you get the point…. nepotism). She’s basically there to serve as protection for the Villar business and interest in the future. I wonder if she also doesn’t see the importance of research??? Hmmmmmm…….
This concoction of the abundance of political dynasties and families with infamous morals and detachment from the normal working Filipinos is a disease that will continue to plague us lest
we start weeding out, as youth, future corrupt politicians.
Simply, as youth, we need to stop voting for the offspring of political dynasties because someday the ballot may look even more like a Game of Thrones family tree where every candidate is somehow related to each other. I would even go as far as saying that we should deprive them of the platform to start as anything near a politician. Now I know this is way more complex and things like vote buying and political alliances exist but at some point, a generation has to stop having this weird allegiance to them. I mean, you don’t need to look any further than the Marcos-Duterte “Uniteam” (ironic) that currently dominates the PH government as the perfect example. Now collective action is obviously a hard thing to do. Ironically, we need unity the most to repel political dynasties and their dirty campaign practices but for systemic change to happen (in the form of anti-political dynasty laws or fixing the party system and rules maybe etc…) we need to put people NOT from political dynasties in positions of power.
I don’t think Filipino children of today will grow up saying they want to become the mayor or a president to do good things for our country. I grew up being aware that no matter on what side of the political spectrum you identify with, the unifying theme is that its citizens view the Philippine government and politics as useless and corrupt. What really pushed me to write this is when I recalled the argument between Socrates and Thrasymachus in Plato’s The Republic.“Wherefore necessity must be laid upon them, and they must be induced to serve from the fear of punishment. And this, as I imagine, is the reason why the forwardness to take office, instead of waiting to be compelled, has been deemed dishonourable. Now the worst part of the punishment is that he who refuses to rule is liable to be ruled by one who is worse than himself.” I wake up every day and I check Twitter. Like a lot of teens in today’s day and age, I sometimes treat my timeline as a morning paper of sorts. I won’t even be able to completely break my morning haze before I encounter a tweet about politics and the stupid waste of money that our politicians are. So much power and taxpayer money being spent on a road that did not need fixing or policies enacted because of lobbying by multinational corporations. And two questions pop up in my head: Why are the people governing this country so bad at doing their job? Did we do this to ourselves? I don’t have definite answers for those questions but what I do know is that we could do this to ourselves. Someday, when my generation grows complacent and disengaged in the future. This might be cliche but it is true that “Kabataan ang pag-asa ng bayan” after all. An awful education system makes it impossible but resources for facts and voter education are so accessible these days that not accessing them is simply the youth choosing to be ignorant. And maybe we already are.
As someone who only started actively participating in on-the-ground activism in the past year by joining Kabataan Partylist in my university chapter, I am near fellow youth with strong principles. I have grown to know more figures in the youth sector who are brave and committed to activism. People who juggle between academics and sacrificing their time to further their advocacies may it be through programs they run or protests they plan. And yet, these people have less of a chance in public office than those who’ve never even bothered to do a quick Google search on pressing social issues. You can see it manifest in the current trend of outrageous answers publicized by school papers from college students running for a position in their respective student governments. Now I don’t want to put them on blast but I know I wasn’t the only one who cackled when this one student from a university in Visayas that shall not be named made an excuse for their stance on the Palestinian Genocide by saying they did not have enough sleep and misheard ceasefire for “keep fire” (the reason is not verbatim)…... and they won (if I remember correctly). An argument can be made that we need to give new and upcoming leaders some leeway to make mistakes and whatnot but at the same time….. in the big year of 2024 how are you anti-activism or homophobic or anti-student press freedom?!
This is becoming a problem. A very big one. This is us keeping up the practice of putting people not fit for public office in public office. Pair that with our culture of anti-intellectualism and you have why progress will continue to be stagnant and slow in the Philippines. We as youth are already actively creating a society with unfavorable conditions that do not promote accountability and principled governance within ourselves without even being aware that we are doing so. We may brush this off as just fellow youth in small insignificant positions that don’t know any better but we are keeping up the culture of not caring enough about the people we vote for or failing to create an environment where those only truly giving a fuck would run. Bring back shame!!! The reluctance to take up these positions from an overwhelmingly aged population in the government also shows that the youth are actively discouraged from playing an active role in governance and allowing their voice to matter. Even worse, some youth do not see the integral role of youth activists in all this.
We need to start phasing this thinking out. We need to start saying “I want to be a ____” again and assert our right to a future with a just and progressive society that lets the voice and interests of the youth matter.